Furniture



June 17, 1941.

K. MICHAELIS FURNITURE Filed June 30, 1936 INVENTOR /(ar/ 1 [c ae/[s Patented June 17, 1941 FURNITURE Karl Michaelis, The Hague, Netherlands, assignor to Thomas V. Michaells, New York, N. Y.

. Application June 30, 1936, Serlal No. 88,194

InG

ermany August-28, 1935 4 Claims. (01. 155-54) My invention relates to a new kind of furniture and quite especially chairs or other seats consisting partly or throughout of curved sheets of wood, preferably laminated wood such as plywood, which owing to its particular properties, offers great advantages for the production of the new articles. Other materials lending themselves for the construction of such articles, for instance artificial masses of resinous character and in 'certain cases elastic metal sheets may be substituted for the wood.

Many of the new pieces of furniture are of lighter weight than similar products made in the ordinary manner by the cabinet maker and may possess a high elasticity of their own. The costs of production are particularly low, since'the operations of glueing, jointing, etc., may in the majority of cases be dispensed with altogether. Consequently wages play a minor role in the production of these articles. Their low weight renders them particularly fit for use in aircraft. 4

A sheet of wood may be rendered pliable by the application of moisture or steam or, in the case of plywood, by the action of dry heat. The sheet may for instance be bent in contact with a curved metal surface heated by steam, gas, electricity or the like, that side of the sheet, which is in contact with the heated surface,being caused to shrink, while the other surface may, if desired, be moistened by means of a steam or water spray. By proceeding in this manner plywood sheets up to and beyond mms. thickness can be bent to U-shape within a few minutes, either by hand or by machinery. For the purpose of mass production, if laminated wood, and preferably plywood, shall be used in the. construction of the new articles, the bending step may be inserted in the process of manufacture of the laminated wood, the superposed veneer sheets, with the glue or other binder deposited thereon, being passed through molding or bending means before the glue or other binder has time to set. By arranging in series with the glue spreading device of a plywood plant a bending or molding device such as a press, preferably a hot press comprising bending orcoacting molding members of suitable shape and configuration, the superposed veneer sheets will be transformed in a continuous operation into suitably curved plywood sheets. Since bending or molding devices of the kind here in view are well known in the art, there is no need for describing them here in detail.

The new articles of furniture possess all the favorable properties of a tough and elastic material such as for instance laminated wood, which is bent and thereby one-sidedly tensioned. They possess a more or less marked spring action which creates a remarkable feeling of softness of theseats. These chairs are, distinguished from other modern chairs such as the steel tube chairs or their wooden imitations by lacking the metallic or wooden frames supporting a separate seat and back. The new chairs are frameless self-supporting structures.

Furniture according to the present invention may adopt many different forms, some of which are shown in a conventional manner in the drawing by way of example.

In the drawing,

Fig. 1 is a perspective view of the basic form of the new type of seats, while Figs. 2 and 3 illustrate slightly modified forms.

Fig. 4 is a. side elevation of the chair of Fig. 1 with the additional support for the seat and Fig. 5 is a similar view showing the chair of Fig. 1 provided with arm rests formed from the same sheet of material.

Figs. 6, 7 and 8 are perspective views of three forms of the chair of Fig.1 braced by rod-shaped members.

Fig. 9 is a side elevation of the chair of Fig. 1, reinforced by plate-shaped reinforcing members.

Referring to the drawing, 7

Fig. 1 illustrates a chair consisting of a single sheet or plate of wood curved twice in different directions, curved portions connecting the base plate I with the seat 8 and this latter with the back 9.

In this chair the base plate and seat extend substantially in parallel, forming, together with the curved spring portion connecting them, a structure having a cross-section resembling an U.

By suitably choosing the strength of the curved portions, the elasticity of this chair may be made such that the chair forms a substitute for a rocking chair, although retaining its firm stand on the ground, and may adapt itself to a certain extent to the body of the person sitting thereon.

The chair illustrated in Fig. 2 differs from the one shown in Fig. 1 by the curved tail piece ll forming a more or less yielding support for the seat Ill.

In the chair of Fig. 3 the back, the seat and the curved foot portion consist of a single sheet ll,

about one third of which is out out at 12 to form two lateral strips bent at 13, the ends of these strips forming a more or less elastic rest for the seat.

Fig. 4 illustrates a chair formed from two curved sheets, one, I00, forming the back, seat and base plate and resembling the chair shown in Fig. 1, while the other one, IOI, fixed to the back of the first plate at I02, is curved slightly below the seat portion to support same, its bottom end being fixed at I03 to the rear end of the base plate. In view of this support both plates may be comparatively light and so elastic as to yield under the weight of the person sitting on the chair. Another curved plate I04 may be provided to form an abutment for the part IOI in the case where the seat is particularly heavily loaded. Obviously the upper half of the back plate IOI may also be dispensed with, the lower half then serving as a rest for the seat.

The sheets or plates may be combined with, or partly replaced by straight or curved strips or rods of wood or other material, for instance metal tubing, fiat iron or brass, etc.

Arm rests may for instance be formed in one piece with the back and seat of a chair by bending the partly severed lateral portions of these parts in the opposite direction, as shown for instance in Fig. 5, where the lateral portion I01 of aplate I05, I08 is bent upwardly, while being still connected with the back I05 and seat I06,

which are bent downwardly.

Separate arm rests may brace the curved plate, as shown in Fig. 6, where the plate III is reinforced by bent rods or tubes H2, H3.

The chair of Fig. '7 differs from Fig. 6 in that the reinforcing rods or tubes II8 fixed to the sheet Ill and forming. arm rests II9 end at I20 short of the ground, thereby stiffening the curved portion of the sheet only above the ground. Here the seat oscillates mainly about the bottom bend.

In all cases difierent portions of a sheet may be of different thickness or may be built up from a diiferent number of veneer sheets, whereby the degree of elasticity of each part or portion can be varied at will to agree with the load which shall be supported by it. j

Laminated wood may be combined with plain wooden sheets or plates and/or with sheets or plates of any other material, for instance sheet metal, which may also be elastic.

Fig. 9 illustrates the bracing of a curved sheet I24 by an U-shaped bracing member I25 inserted between the legs. and fitting the curvedpart, of

the U-shaped part of the sheet.

The term plywood is intended to cover all kinds of sheets consisting of a plurality of veneer sheets glued together.

The sheets of wood, etc., may be decorated by varnishing, lacquering, painting, polishing, engraving, stamping, etc. They may be covered with metal by spraying or in any other manner.

The term chair used in the claims is intended to cover all kinds of body supports including such as form part of vehicles and aircraft.

I The term "unitary sheet of material" as employed in the appended claims is intended to refer to a continuous sheet of material which is either provided as a single sheet or else is assembled from several parts so as to form a continuous structure upon the parts being assembled.

Various changes may be made in the details disclosed in the foregoing specification without departing from the invention or sacrificing the advantages thereof.

As used in the specification and claims the terms wood, "wooden" and plywood" are intended to include any fibrous or cellular material solid or laminated which is pressed, molded or otherwise made.

I claim:

1. A chair comprising in combination, a unitary sheet of material, preferably of wood, extending substantially over the width of the chair and being shaped to form a U-structure including a ground portion, an upwardly extending supporting and connecting portion and a rearwardly extend-' ing seat portion, an upward extension of said sheet of material forming a back rest portion, arm rests extending from said back rest portion into contact with said supporting and connecting portion, and bracing means associated with some of said portions.

2. A chair comprising a unitary sheet of material, preferably of wood, extending substantially over the width of the chair and being shaped to form a U-structure including a ground portion, an upwardly extending supporting and connecting portion and a rearwardly extending seat portion, and an upward extension of said sheet of material forming a back rest portion.

3. A chair comprising a unitary sheet of material, preferably of wood, extending substantially over the width of the chair and being shaped to form a U-structure including a ground portion, an upwardly extending supporting and connecting portion and a rearwardly extending seat portion.

an upward extension of said sheet of material forming a backrest portion, and arm rests extending from said back rest portion into contact with said supporting and connecting portion.

4. A chair comprising in combination,a unitary sheet of plywood extending substantially over the width of the chairand being shaped to form a U-structure including a ground portion, an upwardly extending supporting and connection portion and a rearwardly extending seat portion, an upward extension of said sheet of material forming a back rest portion, arm rests extending from said back rest portion into contact with said supporting and connecting portion, and bracing means associated with some of said portions.

KARL MCHAELIS. 

